FCC Chairman Criticizes Comcast

Reuters, CNN Money

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Kevin Martin, has expressed his unhappiness with Comcast's network management practices, calling them "troubling."Martin was speaking at Stanford University Law School about the FCC's investigation of customer complaints that Comcast has blocked some network traffic, an action that has implications for the ongoing net neutrality debate. In his speech, Martin said that "one of the most important and one of the most troubling aspects of the complaints in front of us is that at first the network operator denied that they were engaged in this kind of a practice publicly." "A hallmark of what should be seen as a reasonable business practice is certainly whether or not the people engaging in that practice are willing to describe it publicly," he continued.

Martin said he expected the agency to come to a decision about the complaints within the next few months. He did not discuss what kind of penalty might be imposed if Comcast was found to have violated the FCC's principles on net neutrality, but he did say the case was a good opportunity to establish precedent. "I think that will end up setting an important precedent going forward," he said, "that we are willing to address individual complaints when they come in."Reuters, CNN Money

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